Lately, I have been thinking about whether some moral principles which we were taught from young and which we still hold dear are still relevant for our children. We are constantly reminded that "times are different" and so we cannot assume what works in the past (for us) will still work now (for our children). While I think that this argument had often been taken too far (because many worthwhile principles in life are timeless), it might indeed be good to re-examine these principles before we affirm them again.
I think, in particular, of this saying, "do the best in everything you do". I should think that very few of my contemporaries will challenge the truth value of this statement. I would even think that many of my peers who are successful in their careers today would attribute their success largely to this maxim of hard work in everything they did/still do. On the other hand, I seem to see more and more people - adults and teenagers - who abide by this adage literally tending to experience great stresses in their lives.
I guess, as a principle, it is hard to fault - hard work is necessary for much of successes in life. But I am beginning to see that it is in the application of this principle that may be the crux of the matter. If we take a 'narrow' application, meaning, we do literally EVERY piece of task to the best of our ability, we may find ourselves not having enough time/energy to finish all the work we intend to accomplish. I take the example of my children doing homework. I used to tell my children that they must do EVERY piece of homework given by their teachers to the best of their ability (well, that was what I did when I was a student). But in the last school semester, I began to notice that one of my daughters (who take my advice literally) has been sleeping Way past midnight consistently. I initially chided her for poor time management. But after some careful observation, I realize that she was just trying to do what I told her: to de EVERY piece of homework to the best of her ability! It just dawned on me that perhaps this is one situation where the era change should cause a rethink of a principle - in my time, there was less homework and so I can afford to do very piece very well, but perhaps in my daughter's generation, where there is much more homework (of every kind)it is more important that she learns to prioritize and thus learns to devote more time/energy on the types of homework that is worth spending more work on.
I guess I am now advocating a 'broader' application of this principle - in the modern era where work given usually requires more time to complete than what is available, doing the best in something (eg, being a student) requires that we know which aspects of the thing we need to work harder on (eg, doing homework that will really help us learn the subject better), and which aspects we should do bare minimum for (eg, homework that are repetitive drills of skills that the child is already proficient in).
It is perhaps even true for parenthood. Sometimes I try to do EVERY thing in parenting to the best of my ability. In the process, I get tired, recreationless, mentally intense, stressed, and thus easily agitated - then messing up the relationship I have with my children. On this sense, by trying to do every part of parenting well, I did not do the overall work of parenting well. I am trying to learn that parenting is also about knowing when to 'let go' so that I van have the time/energy to focus on the substantial work of building strong relationships with my children.
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